Yesterday, I asked this question on Meta. The question was about changing our close vote reason for a question which has been edited since casting our close vote reason. The edit invalidated what our currently voted on close-vote reason, but morphed the question into another closable problem.

As I pointed out in that question, this answer does a fair enough job of explaining why we can't cast a new close vote after retracting our vote or after the question has been reopened.

Furthermore, this answer seems to suggest that I shouldn't vote to re-open a question unless it should be re-open, even if the current close reason is inappropriate. Based on that answer, it would seem to suggest that I also shouldn't retract my close vote (as it still deserves to be closed).

If this answer to my question yesterday is the consensus, that changing a close vote reason after a question is edited is akin to double-voting, then should we allow users that come to the question later (and reviewers) to vote to change the close vote reason (the big explanation in the big gray box under the question)?

This answer to this question suggests that this big gray box I'm referring to should be the most obvious explanation as to why the question is currently closed (though he also recommends detailed comments from close-voters to explain to the asker the specific problems--which I try to do). And if this is the case, it doesn't do much good for that big gray box to have an outdated close reason, does it?

In fact, this outdated close reason might even mislead reviewers to mistakenly open the question.

For example, this question started as a question that didn't contain enough detail. You can view the edits, as well as my comments on the now deleted answer which point to the question clearly not having enough detail as originally posted. It's not until several back-and-forth comments for the question to be clear enough and contain enough detail for the question to have shown itself to be a duplicate.

I commented that the question was a duplicate and any future close votes should be directed as a duplicate of the question I linked, but at this point there were already 3 close votes. The question did get closed, but closed as "unclear what you're asking". I'm not sure there are any edits that could be made to make the question any more clear.

This can be misleading to the asker and could potentially also be misleading to reviewers. "This question looks clear enough to me! I'm voting to reopen!" And it's particularly problematic, because without any upvotes, this comment which points to the duplicate isn't very immediately visible.

EDIT: To be clear, I'm not asking about reopening then reclosing a question just to change the close reason. I'm asking about changing the close reason to a more accurate reason without reopening the question.

This is what a closed/on hold question currently looks like. The biggest problem here (with this particularly question) is that the close reason claims that the question is unclear. At the time it was originally asked and at the time most of the close votes were cast, the question was unclear.

The question is no longer unclear, but it doesn't deserve to be reopened because of another close reason, in this case, a duplicate.

What I'm asking for is, on the line that currently shows:

share | edit | reopen | undelete | flag

An option be added, something along the lines of "change close reason".

This would only exist for questions that are on hold, not deleted questions, I suppose.

You would only be able to vote to change close reason if you didn't already vote-to-close (just as you're prevented from voting to close on a reopened question if you already voted to close).

The vote to change close reason dialog would be identical to the vote to close dialog except that the currently selected close reason would be disabled (except perhaps in the case of a duplicate, where you could still vote to close as a duplicate, but the currently selected duplicate question would not be an option, in the case that the target duplicate should be changed).

As it stands, questions are put on hold with 5 votes (or 1 gold-badge vote) without the need for moderator intervention. Questions can also be reopened with votes and without the need for moderator intervention. Allowing the close reason to be changed by way of vote should allow for more accurate close reasons in the case where a question has been edited from one close reason to another without adding any extra burden on moderators.

I would like to make a sarcastic comment about voting but it's just too much effort... We don't need to vote on everything! Find a dupe target and a gold badge holder of an original tag and smash it in one...
– BenJul 7 '14 at 7:59

Things are already too effing complicated, and one close vote, more or less, isn't going to make any difference.
– Hot LicksJul 7 '14 at 21:16

3 Answers
3

This is probably a good time to point out something that seems obvious to me, but which appears to be lost on much of the Stack Overflow community:

The close reason doesn't really matter enough to fix

Yeah, you heard me right. If a question needs to be closed, and it is in fact closed, the reason given for closing ultimately matters less than the closing itself. Oh, sure, it's good to have the correct close reason, but sometimes the community gets it wrong.

Once a question gets closed, it requires a fairly good reason to reopen it again, and having the wrong close reason on it is not a good enough reason to reopen it or involve a moderator. This is especially true if a suitable answer has already been posted to the question. Asked and answered. Next?

So stop obsessing over bad close reasons

The only time a close reason should be changed is for a duplicate question, and there's already a moderator flag on the question you cited to mark it as a duplicate. The only problem is the question is not a very good one to begin with, and it's already on the road towards deletion, so making it a duplication target is probably a waste of time.

In short, if a question closes for the wrong reason, but it needed to be closed anyway, don't worry about why it closed. Focus your efforts on more productive things. If it really bothers you that it closed for the wrong reason, cast a moderator flag, but we moderators would really prefer to focus on more pressing issues.

I've seen people just re-ask their questions when they get closed. If it's closed as "unclear", they ask another question that they feel is clearer. If it's "too broad", they ask another, narrower question. Often the new questions are just as crappy and just as unsuitable as the old questions. Close-as-dupe doesn't seem to elicit this behaviour from users, so I'd say it's valuable at least to get dupes right. As a bonus, the user learns something from the helpful link to the duplicate.
– tmyklebuJul 6 '14 at 22:50

The content made good points, and represents the major policy. While I personally like proper close reasons, it probably doesn't matter. Don't murder me please.
– UnihedronJul 6 '14 at 23:39

9

+9000 for "The close reason doesn't really matter"! Seriously, this ever-changing set of close reasons we had over the last years has only made closing junk questions harder, and as a consequence, we have the current "theoretical" decay in questions' quality.
– Fabrício MattéJul 7 '14 at 0:16

So flag if close reason should be as a dupe, otherwise, don't worry about it?
– nhgrifJul 7 '14 at 0:24

3

And although I agree with your reasoning, having the ability to change our close vote reason would still be handy in quite a few situations.
– Fabrício MattéJul 7 '14 at 0:29

3

I think we should distinguish as accurately as possible at least two cases: A question that is of poor quality in itself, and a good quality question that is a duplicate. It is useful to keep clear duplicates around, because they are alternative search terms for their answer.
– Patricia ShanahanJul 7 '14 at 2:05

3

While having the "right" close reason is helpful, I agree that changing them after the fact does not seem very productive. There are constantly over 10k entries waiting in the close review queue. Working down that backlog and voting on questions that have never been looked at is a much better way for people to spend their review time than second guessing their previous votes, IMHO.
– Reto KoradiJul 7 '14 at 4:45

@nhgrif: Seems like an essentially sound policy. Maybe flag if both dupe and not crap, otherwise don't worry about it.
– tmyklebuJul 7 '14 at 6:24

7

The close reason is the biggest explanation that can be given to a user as to how they need to improve their question if they have any hope of getting an answer and their question reopened so, yes, it does matter. Another valid reason to change close vote would be from unclear to _____ as the op adds more detail to their question adding clarity.
– SayseJul 7 '14 at 6:32

If it doesn't matter, can we please add a "Just close it already, dammnit" bullet point for closing? I seem to have been wasting time to come up with the proper reason in the past...
– PlasmaHHJul 7 '14 at 9:36

4

@AngeloNeuschitzer: Apparently you are misunderstanding. It doesn't matter enough to reopen it and apply the correct close reason. But it still does matter.
– Robert Harvey♦Jul 7 '14 at 15:15

1

I unmarked this as the accepted answer. I want it to be perfectly clear that I'm not talking about reopening a question. I'm talking about changing the listed close reason without reopening the questions. Comments can left, sure, but to the OP, the only reopen hurdle may appear to be what's in the big gray box left behind. We expect users who ask bad questions to improve their question before reopening; why don't we expect ourselves to improve our close reasons?
– nhgrifJul 7 '14 at 17:43

The close reasons matter or we needn't bother with them at all. They give guidance to the questioners as well as to the close voters.

If it wouldn't matter we needn't write the close reason under the questions but just a simple "Closed" would be enough. Currently this is not the case.

Why do we bother in finding an appropriate close reason when we could just choose another reason in case we think the question shows a lack of minimal understanding and should be closed but there is no corresponding close reason.

Also they give guidance to the questioner what's wrong with the question. Too broad, about general software, ... this is all important information indirectly improving future questions by educating the questioners.

Also edits for reopening are definitely harder if the close reason is wrong. Should the questioner narrow his question down or give more information or ... close reasons help with that.

So if it really doesn't matter then why do we waste time and search for the right close reasons still?

But if it matters then the feature-request is useful. Not sure about the priority but it would be nice to have the ability to change the reason at least once for those who want to do it.

Of course the close reasons matter. They just don't matter enough to go through a reopen/close cycle to fix them. It's better to get the close reason right the first time.
– Robert Harvey♦Jul 7 '14 at 15:17

4

@RobertHarvey Yes, but what do you do if the question is edited in the meantime and the prevalent close reason is then unjustified but the question is still bad and should still be closed? The only way of giving the right close reason to the questioner would be to change the reason. I also think it is not that important but I don't see how this can hurt, so it is a "nice to have" with some kind of priority given by the number of votes to the question.
– TrilarionJul 7 '14 at 15:20

1

All the more reason to stick with the original close reason. Otherwise, we're just chasing close reasons. Leave a clarifying comment instead.
– Robert Harvey♦Jul 7 '14 at 15:21

1

I think the important point that's being missed is that this is a matter of minor details. It's very easy to say every little thing should be fixed, but it's important to understand that prioritization is essential, particularly in something like this. Rather than focusing on the very rare AND very unimportant close reason changing, perhaps people should go review some close votes...
– JoeJul 7 '14 at 15:38

1

@Joe I disagree. Fixing this takes effort only once but then will help for ages, while go and review some close votes you have to do every day again. So I would prioritize things that last and make the job of us easier. Also the guys who programm this feature will hardly be the same guys who vote for closing. The better approach would be to make the software that powers the SEs open and leave it to the users to implement and use the features as they see fit. As it is all this discussion here is meaningless anyway in the sense that only SE people will implement it or not.
– TrilarionJul 7 '14 at 21:00

1

In truth it's probably not that difficult. In the time we discuss it it could already be implemented: For each close vote check if close vote is already existing and changed flag is not set, if so change close reason otherwise display message and do nothing.
– TrilarionJul 7 '14 at 21:01

@Trilarion yeah, it wouldn't take that much time. However, it's not really worth the effort of the SE team when a simple comment could be used. The big grey box is used so people don't just close whatever they like. Also, you're supposed to leave a comment when you close a question, so why not write everything that could be improved?
– Anonymous PenguinJul 7 '14 at 22:35

1

We're talking about cases where the original close reason no longer applies. Leaving comments is fine, and I try to do that, but to new users, across the entirety of the Internet, basically anyone can leave comments, and these users aren't usually the same ones with the power to reopen.
– nhgrifJul 8 '14 at 11:25

If the most expedient solution is to just delete the question, then why are questions marked as "on hold" and we even bother given users a chance to fix their question before deleting it? Wouldn't it be better to just delete it out right when it reached the required number of votes? This would eliminate plenty of edit/comment wars.
– nhgrifJul 8 '14 at 11:29

"awful lot of work" seems exaggerated, although I agree with the rarity of the occurence.
– TrilarionJul 8 '14 at 11:33

3

I can't comment on the amount of work required, but if the aim of having a close reason at all is to give feedback to the asker (and other potential askers) to teach them what to be expected, using the wrong close reason is counter productive. Anyone trying to be a good SO participant will be mislead when seeing a clear question closed as "unclear" and rightly feel confused, if not generally left doubting the overall quality of SO.
– BrunoJul 12 '14 at 17:40